WebHelp local preview says 404

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Dave Gehman
Posts: 575
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2017 9:05 pm

WebHelp local preview says 404

Unread post by Dave Gehman »

H+M 8.3.1.
Chrome
Windows 10 64 Pro 10.0.19041 Build 19041

First I've seen this.

WebHelp file compiles ok, but the Chrome preview just contains "Status 404: File not found"

Any alternate way to see what my compiled WebHelp looks like prior to transferring everything to the server?

(Possible contributing circumstance? - I have 2 Chrome windows open, one signed into my company Google email and one signed into my private gmail account. H+M is choosing my private account; it was the last one where I was active in Chrome.

Happened earlier today, so I tried rebooting. Re-compiled our H+M project as WebHelp, same "Status 404" result. Skin is a company-personalized version of Minimalist_Plain_White_WebHelp.hmskin.)
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Tim Green
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Re: WebHelp local preview says 404

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Dave,

Two possible causes: You have assigned "index" as the ID of a topic in your project, or you have set the output file to something other than index.html/index.htm. 8)
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Dave Gehman
Posts: 575
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2017 9:05 pm

Re: WebHelp local preview says 404

Unread post by Dave Gehman »

The mystery deepens. The output "Index path (file + file name)" ends in index.html -- but there is no index.html in the published output folder.

In Explorer, I searched that output folder on "index" and see only the following:

zoom.index.js (in the folder with the many .html files output by H+M -- top-level or root of the output files)
hmwebhelp_index_tablet.css (in /css)
hmwebhelp_index_phone.css (in /css)
hmwebhelp_index_desktop.css (in /css)

zoom.index.js is made up of very long lines consisting of

Code: Select all

"[word} followed by many numbers",
There appears to be no topic named "index."

H+M's Index Tool has a hit for "index," where that word is indexed because "index" is a keyword in one of our software's base library topics, BaseModel... but no other hit in the Index Tool.

Using Project > Find > Find a Topic. with the radio button for "Sort Topics by: Topic ID (alphanumeric). entering "index" in "Select a 'Topic you want to go to:" results in no hits.
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Tim Green
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Location: Bruehl, Germany
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Re: WebHelp local preview says 404

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Dave,

Those other files with "index" in their names are fine, those are standard components. My guess is that you haven't set a default topic in your project, and that your Help+Manual installation is out of date. Select the topic that should be opened first when the WebHelp is opened, right-click and select "Set as default topic" in the context menu.

And update your copy of Help+Manual 8:

https://www.helpandmanual.com/downloads.html?upd
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

Private support:
Please do not email or PM me with private support requests -- post to the forum directly.
Dave Gehman
Posts: 575
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2017 9:05 pm

Re: WebHelp local preview says 404

Unread post by Dave Gehman »

Setting the default topic solved the issue.

We've had hundreds of successful compiles w/local version up to this point. I have no idea why the 'default topic' setting might have changed.

According to Help > Check for Update, I'm working with the current version.
H+M 8 Version 8.3.2 build 5894
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